An online collection of a middle school teacher's ponderings

creativity

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To practice punctuating dialogue, the kids wrote break-up conversations. Here is one that plays with words beautifully. It may not be perfectly written, but this was done in a few minutes without out being edited.

Like this:

Here are some famous first lines from different books and movies. Students will write a story where one of the lines must appear, authentically, in the story. The line doesn’t have to be the first line, but it does have to appear.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

All this happened, more or less.

I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother, Jem, got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

What’s your dream?

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

This is an activity that I have used in different variations. My students are always actively engaged as they create a reindeer that Santa rejected. They are even excited to write about their reindeer.

I tell parents every year at open house that the art of teaching is creating lessons that are so engaging for students that the students are willing to complete the task even if they don’t like what they are doing. Writing is a great example of this. Many students do not enjoy writing because it takes a long time, it requires them to think, it doesn’t have A right answer,there are many rules, etc. However, there aren’t many skills more important for them to learn, so I am always on the lookout for good writing prompts and for resources that can be turned into meaningful, engaging writing prompts.

Like this:

As I am planning for Halloween in my middle school language arts class, I remembered 2 Sentence Horror Stories. I pulled up the directions to make sure that I thought this would be a good activity for this years’ classes. I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

Do you have a friend who you hardly ever see but seem to be on the same wave length in your thoughts and beliefs? I do, and I thank her for sharing this post with me.

I so value creativity and believe that creativity is really more important than base intelligence because it is what moves us forward in the world. The post from edutopia.com is short but thought-provoking. Below are two things that stuck with me as I read.

“To create, we need to make space for our creation. Think of it this way — Emily Dickinson might not have written a word if she kept getting text messages. Thomas Edison might not have created the light bulb if he was sitting on his Facebook page. Steve Jobs might not have made the Mac if he was sucked into Candy Crush. Yet this is the world that we live in. We are highly over-stimulated.”

“When you are not consumed by technology, your brain has space to breathe and to create.”

So, what does this mean for me in my classroom? How can I encourage creativity with my students?

The blog post recommends giving kids time to think and then ask them where their thoughts went.